BACKYARD GOAT FARM PERFORMANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES (2008-2010; 2013-2015)

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BACKYARD GOAT FARM PERFORMANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES (2008-2010; 2013-2015)

Journal Title: International Journal of Agriculture Sciences - Year 2016, Vol 8, Issue 52

Abstract

Goat raising is gaining popularity as an enterprise in the Philippines, however, very few have taken the initiative to gather data from backyard goat farmers and to analyze their farm performance to understand the viability of the enterprise. In 2008-2010, a research program that was conducted on a national level entitled Goat Farm Production Performance in the Philippines[1] was tasked to establish a national goat farm production performance monitoring system for goat farms to gather and evaluate productive and reproductive performances of locally raised goats without introducing management interventions to the raisers. In 2013-2015, the farmers were trained the technologies of goat production using the Farmer Livestock School-Goat Enterprise Management (FLS-GEM) extension modality primarily to determine the effects of the management interventions on the performance of the goat farms. The Farmer Livestock School-Goat Enterprise Management Modality is an extension modality in which the farmers were trained the goat management interventions by attending barangay classes at their most convenient time. The data were gathered from purposively selected goat raisers with five or more does. Monthly monitoring of the data on productive and reproductive performances were done, analyzed and results were fed-back to the goat raisers. In 2013-2015, in 2008-10 the farmers were trained the management interventions using the FLS-GEM extension modality. Initially, a curriculum was developed by a group of experts in the Philippines. This curriculum served as the material in training the 21 national facilitators coming from Regions 1, 2, 3,8, 10 and 12 in the Philippines. After the national training, each set of regional trainers trained 25 regional facilitators the way they were trained during the national training. These trained regional trainers in turn trained at least 25 farmers on a scheduled basis based on the most convenient time of the farmers, preferably once a week for 4 hours. The training modality allows simultaneous trainings in the six regions, thus allowing more trainees at a specific time. To assess the effects of the extension modality, 10% of the trained farmers served as cooperators in which monthly monitoring of their goat farm performance was done. Based from the data gathered, with technological interventions adopted by the backyard goat raisers who had undergone the FLS-GEM training, conception rate increased from 75%(2008-2010 data) to 82%(2013-2015 data) ; kidding interval was shortened from 251 days to 246.85 days, thereby increasing kidding index from 1.45 to 1.48 kiddings per doe/year. With the inclusion of proper feeding and health regimen, pre-weaning mortality significantly dropped from 21.4 % to 1.60% in the participating sites. Considering the infusion of quality genetic materials either through Artificial Insemination or through natural breeding, there was an increase in average birth weight from 1.7 kg to 2.12 kg and slaughter weight from 16.5 kg to 22.30 kg. In addition, the farmers were able to engage in goat enterprises as waste utilization converted into organic fertilizer, forage enterprise and there were artificial inseminators trained. Based on these findings, it is concluded that backyard goat farm performance significantly improved with appropriate trainings and technology interventions through the Farmer Livestock School- Goat Enterprise extension modality. It is therefore recommended that the FLS-GEM modality be used in training goat raisers to reach more goat raisers at a specific period.

Authors and Affiliations

P. M. BARCELO

Keywords

EP ID EP171163
DOI -
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